Meet three people ripped off by iTunes fraud ring
Reports from victims of fraud on iTunes are beginning to paint a picture of what could be a significant security issue for Apple's online entertainment store. Worse yet, several of the victims that reported into Betanews on their experience are employed in IT -- obviously understanding the risks of improperly secured personal data.
Although not uniform, Betanews investigations into the issue seem to suggest that attackers have primarily targeted users that had credit balances with iTunes. Monitoring of Sega's Kingdom Conquest app page show new comments posted today of fraudulent charges, indicating the hack is ongoing. But that's not the worst of it: other apps may be victims of these hackers.
AmazonLocal brings daily deals to Boise, Idaho, but not to you (yet)
Amazon apparently is getting into the Groupon coupon-like business by aggregating deals from LivingSocial. But don't rush out to the AmazonLocal website, unless you live in Boise, Idaho. That appears to be the only city where there are local deals.
Tip of the hat goes to TheNextWeb for uncovering AmazonLocal and its apparently one-city offering. I've got a call in asking for more details and will update this story should Amazon respond.
Chromebook presale already sold out, but there's a wait-list
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 isn't the only new portable getting the early sales treatment -- and, hey, it runs another Google operating system. Gilt Groupe is offering the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook, for presale. I meant to write about the offer yesterday, but got sidetracked with other news. Gilt Group spam promotional email reminded me today.
Yesterday I received an unexpected email from "The Chrome Team" offering the presale, starting at Noon ET June 1, but leading to the Gilt Groupe site. Can you say phishing scam? So I suspected before confirming legitimacy.
China calls Google's phishing/hacking accusations 'groundless,' 'chimerical'
On Wednesday, Engineering Director of Google's Security Team Eric Grosse said his team had uncovered a password-stealing campaign originating from Jinan, China that targeted senior U.S., South Korean, and other Asian government officials, Chinese political activists, military personnel, and journalists.
Unlike a typical phishing scam looking to steal money from whomever falls for its social engineering tricks, Grosse suggested that this campaign was more for the purposes of espionage or information collection, and was targeting individuals.
Live in New York City? Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 could be yours next week
In a smart, and perhaps risky, marketing move, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be available early -- that's June 8 -- at one store in the United States. Otherwise, the tablet goes on sale June 17 nationwide. Will the Android Army line up for the Tab? Samsung should hope so.
Samsung says that a "limited quantity" of Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi models will be sold at Best Buy Union Square, in the great NYC. You're a lucky sod, if an Android fan and living in the New York metro area or planning to travel there next week. I dunno what kind of customer-waiting line the Tab could draw on a Wednesday, but, hey, it's the kind of thing that could be a marketing coup for Samsung and the tablet.
I got hacked on iTunes
Last night, I was sitting around with friends enjoying the evening and happened to check my e-mail. To my surprise, I had received two e-mails from PayPal with the subjects "Receipt for Your Payment to iTunes Store." That's funny -- I hadn't bought anything on iTunes in over a week, and the last charge had already hit my account days ago.
Imagine my horror when I logged into the Account Management section and saw this: repeated charges totaling $95.30, split in two equal parts. Worse yet, it was for a game I had never downloaded, Sega's "Kingdom Conquest." Repeatedly, somebody had purchased within the app 1,200 CP (which I'm guessing is in-game credits) at $8.99 a piece.
It took 4 min 34 sec to get me really excited about Windows again
Sign me up for the Windows 8 beta, Microsoft, and I'll sell my MacBook Air. Perhaps the Samsung Series 9 should be next?
Late yesterday, Microsoft gave the first sneak peak of Windows 8. What a peak! Apple unveils Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" in just four days, and it's antiquated before release. Microsoft has taken one of the freshest approaches to operating system user interfaces since, well, the Macintosh in 1984. The new UI is fluid and modern, using HTML5 for rendering.
BUILD It for Windows 8
Windows isn't the only makeover going on at Microsoft this week. Alongside today's Windows 8 preview, Microsoft also announced the BUILD conference, what had been PDC 2011. Microsoft previously announced the developer conference during MIX11, in April, for Sept. 13-16 in Anaheim, Calif. BUILD is the same event, made over, and with new name.
What a name! The connotations are loaded, and Microsoft is doing good job endearing them. From Microsoft: "BUILD what you DREAM." "BUILD with Windows 8."
Windows 8: the lovechild of Windows Phone and Windows 7
At the D9 Conference on Wednesday, Microsoft gave the public a much deeper look at Windows 8 than it had previously, revealing the company's progress in making a Windows that is scalable to the most popular types of interfaces in addition to the most popular instruction sets.
The result looks a lot like Windows Phone, but it has a lot of the underpinnings of Windows 7.
+1: Can a Googlized Like button succeed?
Google's Facebook "Like" clone +1 took another step towards becoming exactly that on Wednesday as the company said it was now allowing web publishers to place the button directly on their websites.
Previously, +1 was only a feature within Google's search engine that allowed users to 'upvote' results as a method of approving of their relevance. With the expansion of the functionality, it would now include votes from users directly on those pages as part of those totals.
Google begins killing off support for older browsers -- well, not that old
Wouldn't it be funny if Google turned out to be the Internet's security cop? That's one way to interpret the search and information giant's continued push to clear away aging web browsers. First Internet Explorer 6, now Firefox 3.5, IE7 and Safari 3. Google will stop supporting these latter three browsers two months from today.
Google's reasons have nothing to do with security, but there could be a safety benefit. Let's face it, major developers invest more in their newest browser versions. More significantly, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are now on fast development tracks, with new browser milestones coming every six to eight weeks. For example, Firefox 4 launched in late March with great fanfare -- 6 million downloads in 24 hours -- yet version 7 Nightly builds are already available for download. Firefox 5 is scheduled to release on June 21.
Is new spam scourge coming, as botmasters repopulate networks?
Have you noticed a decline in spam reaching your inbox? Sadly, the respite won't last long. More spam is coming your way.
Today, McAfee Labs released its First Quarter 2011 Threat Report, and there's good news. Spam volumes are considerably lower and it's because of some significant law enforcement victories. Among them: In march, law enforcement, working with Microsoft, took down the Rustock botnet and with it a big chunk of the zombie/bot population.
Android dominates smartphone market but consumes tons of data
Market research company Nielsen has released its smartphone market share figures for the first quarter of 2011 which show that Android has risen to both the top of market share and data consumption.
Android's meteoric rise can be seen quite clearly when comparing Nielsen's first quarter 2010 numbers with those it just released.
Apple's Mac Defender patch is already worthless
Within hours of Apple updating Mac OS X to specifically deal with the Mac Defender problem, the malware developers have already released code that bypasses the fix into the wild. "Mdinstall.pkg" is the name of the file, and it appeared to have been released about 8 hours after Apple's fix.
It will take some time for this version of Mac Defender to propagate, thus Apple's updated antivirus definitions will provide some limited protection. It will likely require the Cupertino company to work daily in updating the definitions -- a whole new world for a company used to watching malware purveyors attack Windows instead.
Genie Timeline Cloud grants your wish for online storage
Genie9 Corporation, the company behind the Genie Timeline backup tool, has introduced a new cloud-based backup for businesses and families. Timeline Cloud features the usual cloud-based backup tools, plus adds in some unique features that could prove invaluable for businesses and families.
The most notable feature offered is Cloud Disaster Recovery, which makes it possible to restore a computer to working order via the Internet or network. Timeline Cloud is also designed to be administered from the web, allowing one person to set up and manage backup policies for employees or other family members. Genie9 claims that configuring backup plans takes just five minutes.
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